In cable television systems, it is conventional to transmit a broadband radio frequency ("RF") signal along a cable for delivery of programming to a consumer's home. The broadband RF signal contains a number of signal channels to which a user can tune to view different programs. A typical cable system provides 30-45 channels, although some systems provide fewer than 20 channels and others provide more than 70 different channels. In order to tune to the different channels carried by the cable, users are provided with cable television converters which are connected between the cable coming into the user's home or office and the user's television set. Sometimes, a user will connect the converter to a video recorder which can record and play back programs on his television set. The use of the cable television converter has usually required the user to tune to desired programs using the converter instead of the tuner built into his television set or video recorder.
Video appliances (e.g., televisions and video recorders) which are "cable-ready" have been available for several years and their population is rapidly increasing. These cable-ready products are capable of directly tuning cable channels without the need for a converter, but are not able to descramble premium channels which only authorized subscribers are permitted to receive. Thus, a cable television descrambler, which is usually part of the cable television converter, is still required in order to view scrambled premium channels. The advantages of cable-ready video appliances are therefore often not able to be utilized, since a converter/descrambler must still be placed between the cable and the user's television set or recorder.
Many of the cable-ready video appliances have remote control features that are very appealing to the user. Such features include channel scan, volume, mute, favorite channel programming, picture-in-a-picture, etc. A cable television converter renders many of these features inoperable, and requires the user to use the remote control unit supplied with the converter, for which he may be charged a rental fee. Since the video appliance must remain tuned to the output channel of the converter (typically, channel 2, 3, or 4), the remote control for the video appliance become useless except for features such as on/off, mute, and volume control. Even for these features, the user must still deal with the separate remote control units for both the video appliance and the cable television converter.
Another problem caused by placing a cable television converter in series with the cable and the video appliance is the difficulty of using a video recorder to record one channel while simultaneously watching another on the user's television set. Elaborate cabling schemes using splitters and switches can ease this problem, but these are often complex and difficult for the user to set up.
It would be advantageous to provide an apparatus and method for utilizing the full capabilities of a cable-ready video appliance in conjunction with a cable television system providing unscrambled channels and scrambled premium channels. In such a system, a user should be able to connect a video appliance to the cable exactly as he would if he had an antenna rather than cable. In such an instance, the built-in switching capability in every video recorder would allow a user to record one channel while watching another, without added complexity. All of the cable-ready features of any video appliance would be fully usable.
The present invention provides such an apparatus and method.